Given the diffusion of the Social

Scientific information about the global climate and its development is both complex and uncertain. For laypersons, mass media and the Internet constitute the main sources of information about climate change. However, so far, little is known about the impact of mass media and, in particular, of online content about climate change on the audience’s knowledge regarding and attitudes toward climate change. Therefore, a survey with a representative sample of German Internet users (n = 1,523) was conducted. Based on previous research and theoretical considerations, a measurement model was developed that also included the individual variables environmental awareness and perceived involvement. Additionally, the individual’s perspective on media content was taken into account by considering moderator effects of the individual’s evaluation of media content and need for information. In this way, television and radio use was shown to slightly affect the levels of knowledge and problem awareness. The moderators media evaluation and need for information proved to be particularly important for the impact of Internet use. The more media reporting was perceived as exaggerated, the more Internet use negatively affected levels of knowledge, problem awareness, and behavioral intentions. Conversely, the interaction between need for information and Internet use increased the impact on problem awareness and behavioral intentions. Hence, it becomes clear that the Internet plays a crucial role in people’s attitude generation processes, but is utilized in different ways.

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How users discuss climate change online is one of the crucial questions (science) communication scholars address nowadays. This study contributes by approaching the issue through the theoretical concept of online public arenas. The diversity of topics and perceptions in the climate change discourse is explored by comparing different arenas. German journalistic articles and their reader comments as well as scientific expert blogs are analyzed by quantitative manual and automated content analysis (n=5,301). Findings demonstrate a larger diversity of topics and interpretations in arenas with low barriers to communication. Overall, climate change skepticism is rare, but mostly present in lay publics.

This paper argues the relevance of the internet for scientific communication. It is not only an immense source of information, it also empowers laypeople to interact by commenting, rating, and sharing online content. Previous studies have found that users' contributions to online content affect the reception processes. However, research on who actually uses these participatory possibilities is scarce. This paper characterizes engaged (and non-engaged) online users by analyzing online engagement (using search engines and different participatory forms) with a representative German online survey (n = 1,463). Different groups of climate change perceptions (such as uncertainty of scientific evidence), attitudes, knowledge, and online engagement are identified with hierarchical cluster analyses. Interest and knowledge are main drivers of online engagement, although a group of uninterested, unknowing and doubtful users participates in SNSs. The most active group, participating experts, knows most about scientific processes in climate sciences. No distinct group of skeptical participants was identified.

Due to the rise of the Internet, the effects of different science communication formats in which experts appear cannot be neglected in communication research. Through their emotional and more comprehensible communication ‘sciencetubers’—who frequently differ from the stereotypical image of scientists as white, old men—may have a considerable effect on the public’s perceived trustworthiness of scientists as well as their trust in science. Thus, this study aims to extend trust and trustworthiness research to consider the role of emotion in science communication in the context of emerging online video content. Therefore, perceived trustworthiness was examined in an experimental online survey of 155 people aged 18–80. We considered different potential influencing variables for trustworthiness (expertise, integrity, benevolence) and used six different video stimuli about physics featuring scientific experts. The video stimuli varied according to format (TV interviews vs. YouTube videos), gender (male vs. female), and age of the experts depicted (old vs. young). The results suggest that: (1) Scientific experts appearing in TV interviews are perceived as more competent but not higher in integrity or benevolence than sciencetubers—while scientists interviewed on TV are regarded as typical scientists, sciencetubers stand out for their highly professional communication abilities (being entertaining and comprehensible); (2) these emotional assessments of scientists are important predictors of perceived trustworthiness; and (3) significantly mediate the effect of the stimulus (TV interview vs. YouTube video) on all dimensions of perceived trustworthiness of scientific experts.

Darüber hinaus findet es jedoch wenig Beachtung. Dies gilt insbesondere für die Publikumsperspektive. Dabei erscheint diese bezüglich des Themas Klimawandel aus verschiedenen Gründen besonders bedeutsam: Erstens handelt es sich bei "Klima" um ein Themenfeld, zu dem es kaum individuelle und sinnlich erfahrbare Anschauungen geben kann (im Gegensatz zu Wetter). Klima bzw. Klimawandel sind vielmehr wissenschaftliche Konstrukte, die auf theoretischen Modellberechnungen beruhen und mit statistischen Mittelwerten und Extremwerten arbeiten, die sich auf so große Räume und derart weite Zeitspannen beziehen, dass sie außerhalb der individuellen Erfahrungswelt liegen (Böhner & Ratter 2010; Neverla & Schäfer im Druck). Zweitens handelt es sich um ein Themenfeld mit hoch komplexem und zugleich fragilem, im wissenschaftlich strengen Sinn unsicherem Wissen. Klimawissen entsteht aus theoretisch anspruchsvollen und empirisch interdisziplinär erarbeiteten Daten aus verschiedenen naturwissenschaftlichen Disziplinen (Stehr & von Storch 1997). Dieses hoch komplexe Fachwissen ist dennoch 1.

(OA) is an evolving publication model that is heavily supported by politics and science organizations aiming to make scientific knowledge more accessible to a wider audience. Whether it will indeed alter scholarly communication, however, depends on researchers' underlying attitudes, motivations, and needs. Drawing on group discussions and interviews (n = 42), this study explores the perceptions, attitudes and behaviours of researchers towards OA publishing. We focus on researchers in the field of biomedical and health informatics located in different global regions and from different seniority levels. Overall, the results show that whilst most researchers support the idea of making scientific knowledge freely accessible to everyone, they are hesitant about actually living this practice by choosing OA journals to publish their own work. Article processing charges and quality issues are perceived as the main obstacles in this respect, revealing a two-sided evaluation of OA models, reflecting the different viewpoints of researchers as authors or readers. The results further highlight hitherto underexplored influencing factors regarding institutional frame conditions, located on the level of the scientific system, the publication service providers or the national/international OA policies.